


Collaboration

by thedevilchicken



Category: Copycat (1995)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 18:14:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2821568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of the movie, Helen and MJ find a way to move on. A Yuletide 2014 treat for wonderluck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Collaboration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wonderluck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderluck/gifts).



Helen didn't write the book. 

She told herself the reason why she didn't was that she wanted to move on, though that was something of a sidestep from the truth; what she actually wanted was to forget, which was far from being the same thing. It was never actually going to work, either, and she knew that very well indeed. She would always be surrounded by the memories of what had happened, there would always be those little reminders that would sneak up unexpectedly and take her by surprise, and so pushing them down or pushing them aside really would not do. 

And so, because she couldn't forget, she went back to work. The agoraphobia was never really gone, of course, and she supposed it never really would be, but she'd made a significant leap since that night and besides that, it was hardly difficult to continue her work from her home. After six months or so she purchased the apartment directly beneath her own, at a rather reduced rate that was likely the result of recent events and her continued presence after them. It was much smaller in terms of square footage and its view over the marina was vastly less impressive, but that was hardly the point; a little renovation, though that included several weeks of less than charitable comments both to and regarding the workmen, and she had her private practice ready. She was hardly short of patients once the practice opened, with her name popping up in the press the way it had, and her top-notch security seemed to put off only potential stalkers.

When she was asked about the possibility of writing a book on Peter Foley, when publishers called and they certainly did call, her reply was always she had no desire to make another killer famous: what she did, from time to time and in close collaboration with appropriate law enforcement professionals, was to _catch_ killers, and contributing to the glorification of serial murder was far from the accepted description of her particular line of work. There was a certain note of condemnation in her tone each and every time she said it, her opinions on the popular media's fetish for violence quite clear. Honestly, she resented that she was ever even asked the question. She got angry. She had quite the temper.

Helen didn't write the book. But MJ did. 

It was two days after the debacle in the lecture hall when they'd met again. They were both in the hospital, Helen mostly because her doctors weren't convinced that she wasn't right on the verge of a second nervous breakdown and MJ for the shot to her shoulder that had managed to scrape in by the strap of her vest. Helen recalled the moment that she'd thought Detective Monaghan had died, the way her body slumped to the bathroom floor and the explosion of gunshots. She thought perhaps only half of her had thought it and the other half had struggled to prevent another shot, just in case. But, of course, she didn't like to think about that night. 

Helen had to admit she was far from the world's most patient patient then, though at least part of that stemmed from the fact that she just wanted to go home. Even without Andy, and she would miss him dearly, even if her phobia had dimmed to the point where the meds actually kept her away firmly away from hyperventilation, she still felt that her apartment was where she belonged. There were too many people around her there in the hospital, too much bustling going on in the hallways, buzzers and alarms and occasional laughter that did nothing but grate on her nerves. She wanted her favourite satin nightgown and a good glass of wine, opera and a good book instead of daytime television and terrible hospital food, all interspersed with visits from a suspiciously cheerful nurse who checked in like clockwork every 15 minutes. She could only assume the mandate was to ensure she hadn't found a way to kill herself. 

Helen had tried to explain since she'd woken up there in that hospital bed, tried till she was practically blue in the face, that she had absolutely no intention of killing herself. Perhaps the doctors struggled to see what she had left to live for, or looked at her chart and somehow concluded that agoraphobia combined with her particular type of trauma was a direct route to suicide, but if there was one thing that the experience had made abundantly clear to her it was that she did not want to die. She wanted very much to go on living. She was going to survive, and the first thing she was going to do when she left the hospital was throw away that accursed red suit. She wasn't entirely sure why she hadn't the first time. 

MJ came by on the second day. She was in a hospital gown, sitting in a wheelchair pushed by a rather stern-faced porter, looking very much like she might stand and walk of her own accord at any moment though she'd probably have found herself deposited straight back into the chair if she had. They stopped in the doorway and Helen looked up from her book and over the top of her glasses, expecting to see the nurse with the alarming smile and finding the diminutive detective there instead. She found herself smiling though she blamed that on the meds. MJ smiled back. The porter remained stern.

They exchanged pleasantries for a moment, enquiring after each other's health, and then conversation lulled as they watched each other across the room. 

"Thank you, detective," Helen said, suddenly. She put down her book and took off her glasses and made sure she looked every inch like she meant what she'd said. She did, because even back there on the rooftop at the end of it all, she'd wanted to live. She wasn't entirely convinced she'd been sure before that.

MJ gave a modest shrug and winced with the movement of her injured shoulder. "My pleasure, Dr Hudson," she said, rubbing her shoulder rather gingerly. "And it's MJ. I think we got past polite last names a couple of nights ago."

"Then call me Helen." 

MJ nodded. She looked pale and her left arm was tied up in a sling, her long hair was loose around her shoulders in quite a genuine mess and frankly, she looked terrible. Helen supposed she must have looked almost as frightful herself. She'd seen very few people looking their best in hospital beds, even when they'd put a great deal of effort into doing so.

"I'll see you around, Helen," MJ said, and the porter took that as his cue to move on, wheeling her away from the doorway. Helen didn't reply, and she very much doubted that she'd ever see MJ Monaghan again. 

She was wrong, and that came as quite a surprise. It was late, around 11pm just a couple of months later, when the doorbell rang and Helen looked up from her book, wine glass in her hand. She hadn't been expecting company and had found to her dismay, since her release from the hospital, that she felt a frisson of something less than pleasant each and every time there was a knock at the door or a ring of the bell. But, she reminded herself, Peter Foley was dead and Daryll Lee Cullum was still very firmly imprisoned, awaiting the execution that Helen strongly suspected he did not believe would ever come. So she told herself she was being ridiculous and she took off her glasses, set down her book and her glass on the table, and she went to the door. 

"I'm sorry to call by so late," MJ said, when Helen opened the door on the chain. "I was in the neighbourhood and I…" Helen removed the chain and opened the door; she stepped back and let MJ step inside past her, though she frankly had no idea why that had seemed like the appropriate course of action. "No, that's not true." 

Helen closed the door, making sure it was locked behind them, and then looked at MJ. 

"What's not true, detective?"

"I wasn't in the neighbourhood." She shrugged widely and let her arms fall back against her sides. "I was on the other side of town. But I thought, well, I thought I'd come by and." She shrugged again, the action smaller this time, as if she realised just how crazy this all sounded, and smiled a small, self-deprecating smile. "I thought I'd come by and see how you're doing."

Helen realised she'd been standing there with her hands on her hips the entire time that MJ had been talking, and smoothed down her nightgown before lacing her fingers instead. 

"I'm doing well," she said, and that was at least partly true. Sadly, of course, that meant it was at least partly a lie. "And you?"

MJ sighed, and she turned, and she looked around the room as she started walking in a wide circle around it, hands tucked into the back pockets of her jeans. "I don't know," she said. "I guess I'm fine. I'm physically fine, y'know?" She lifted her injured left arm, rubbed at her shoulder, circled it a few times as if doing an imaginary backstroke though that made her top ride up over her stomach just a fraction, an inch of bare skin between the waist of her jeans and the hem of her t-shirt that Helen found herself watching. "But I keep thinking about it." She flopped down heavily onto the nearest sofa and rested her head back, her eyes closing. "About Reuben. About Foley. Don't you think about it?"

Helen paused. She was, of course, quite used to patients who wanted to talk, but quite honestly she was far from sure how to react to this. She'd been working on forgetting, on getting back to normality, had several interviews for a new assistant scheduled over the coming week since the stream of temps had been such a bitter disappointment and Andy's bedroom door remained firmly closed, and now there was this. And the truth was, she tried very hard _not_ to think about it. She drew a breath. MJ opened her eyes. 

"Oh my God, I'm sorry," MJ said, a little too quickly, and sat up from her slump though her finished position - leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands - was hardly any better. Helen noticed her badge was missing from the belt of her jeans, no tell-tale bulk of a shoulder-holstered gun beneath her jacket. "This was stupid of me." Helen sat herself down on the couch, sideways, curling her legs up beside her, finding herself oddly fascinated by the one-sided conversation. It was such an interesting mixture of amusing and utterly horrifying that she couldn't quite bring herself to interject. "I should go." 

MJ made no move to leave. Helen didn't ask her to. Instead, she offered her a glass of wine. 

It wasn't much of a conversation that ensued, and Helen supposed that was something of a relief. They just sat there and the drank, any actual communication relatively sparse, then Helen wandered into the kitchen to open up a second bottle and they drank some more until MJ wasn't even close to fit to drive. Helen called her a cab around 1am and then she took a pill and fell asleep on the couch. By the time she woke the following morning, MJ's car was gone from the parking lot outside. 

She came by again two nights later, around the same time, with a bottle of wine in her hand that Helen took with a slightly amused, bemused smile. They took their places on the couch and they drank again, and they talked a little, avoided the most obvious subject and strayed into connected territory, to the fact that MJ was still technically on leave following the shooting. It had been less than three months and medically speaking she hadn't yet been cleared for duty, which she seemed to be taking particularly hard due to the coincidence of her partner's death. She said he was a good guy, a good partner, fun and smart and maybe a bit of a womaniser and Helen could believe that, all of that. She'd liked him, for the brief time they'd been acquainted. She could see how he'd be missed. 

MJ came by again the following night, and then the night after that and the night after that, until it became a regular - if strange - arrangement. They would talk, about MJ's testimony for the inquest into Reuben's death, about Helen's plans for her practice, about MJ's ideas about that night that veered dangerously close to chapters of a book. They didn't exactly see eye to eye on every occasion, and they fought sometimes, and they challenged each other, intellectually, belligerently, but that didn't keep MJ from returning. Helen wasn't sure if she was more pleased or concerned by that. She wasn't sure why she allowed her to return.

She came by every night for a couple of weeks and sometimes they'd drink and sometimes they wouldn't, sometimes MJ would talk about old cases or old boyfriends or her family or her life or her job and sometimes Helen even managed to turn off her inner psychologist and just listen to her as she spoke. She liked her voice, her turn of phrase, the way sometimes she knew she'd misspoken and took the time to correct herself with a momentary frown because doing things right was important to her, not just because it had likely helped her career to be thought of as intelligent as well as capable. Helen found it was an endearing quality. She told her so, and MJ smiled as she looked away, just a little embarrassed by the compliment.

That was the point that everything changed, when MJ finally looked back over at her with an expression on her face that had entirely changed; suddenly Helen was acutely aware that she was sitting there wearing only a nightgown, and MJ looked for all the world like she'd been very much aware of that fact all along. Helen hastily pulled on a sweater but it didn't alter her realisation and frankly it had very little to do with her state of undress anyway. The fact of the matter was that MJ was looking, looking _at her_ , looking at her in a very particular way, and when Helen really thought about it, after MJ had left in the early hours of the following morning, she found to her surprise that she didn't mind at all. 

It was a curious notion, that the petite detective who'd been haunting her apartment for the past several weeks turned out to be attracted to her. It was even more curious that the more Helen considered it, the more it didn't seem curious at all: they had shared quite a lot, after all, and events had brought them together, so perhaps that was it. Helen suspected she was hearing more about MJ's life and her conflict over Reuben's death than the department's psychologist, and the cynic in her had to wonder if the reason why MJ had knocked on the door in the first place was the job that Helen had, if the cop in her rebelled against the notion of chatting with the department shrink but something deeper said that visiting a clinical psychologist was fine, provided they were both off duty. Perhaps this was a simple case just like she'd seen before, a commonplace occurrence of patient falling for doctor. 

Facetiously, she wondered if she ought to charge for her time, and then she scolded herself as she headed for the shower before bed. MJ wasn't her patient, a fact of which they were both aware. She wasn't even her friend in any traditional sense. She was something else entirely, because Helen couldn't help but note that the attraction was mutual.

When she woke, things somehow seemed clearer, as if a decision had been made and perhaps subconsciously it had. When MJ came by that evening, the dynamic had changed but not for the worse. The experimental flirting was fun over the next couple of weeks, if veiled and slightly tenuous. Helen's clothing became slightly more provocative and MJ's appreciation became ever so slightly more overt. It was new and it was exciting and Helen caught herself looking forward to the nightly visits with a smile, as she typed at her computer or won another game of chess. It seemed moving on was, in some ways, preferable to forgetting. 

And then, of course, MJ went back to work. And then, of course, the visits stopped. Helen supposed she shouldn't have been surprised, and hated that she was. 

Two weeks passed without a word and Helen told herself it didn't matter. She told herself she didn't miss their conversations and that she wasn't at all concerned, though she paid closer attention than usual to her police scanner anyway. She was doing well, she told herself, could sit at the table on her balcony to drink her morning coffee, could collect her newspaper from the corridor outside her door without starting to feel faint. She could step outside the front door of the building, she'd started to take short walks around the perimeter of the parking lot and then out by the water by the boats and she was doing well, she didn't need the conversation, she didn't need the flirtation. Plans for her new practice were on course. She was doing well. She could move on without MJ Monaghan.

But then there she was one night, three weeks, four weeks later, just like she'd never been away at all. Helen found herself caught directly between relief and anger, vacillating wildly and annoyed with herself as they stood at either side of her front door. She let her in. The first chapter of the book was in her hands. 

They argued, of course they did. Helen accused her of things she knew just weren't true, profiteering, spotlight-seeking, using their strange relationship for her own ends. MJ seemed rattled and then she said some things that Helen knew she didn't mean, but that knowledge didn't stop her biting back, and hard. Helen slapped her straight across the face. MJ fell silent and she turned to leave but she paused and Helen watched her with at least a hint of regret for what she'd done, but the rest was ire. When MJ turned back to her the expression on her face was fiery; when they kissed, it didn't lack for passion.

It was tongues and teeth and fingers in hair, ardent and heated in a way that Helen felt in every inch of her. Afterwards, MJ tried to pass it off as a mistake; she stepped away and she made excuses but that didn't last much longer than that evening as frankly, Helen wasn't one for tiptoeing around a situation and it seemed MJ knew her better than to give it more than a half-hearted attempt. The wide-eyed little girl routine was far from the best way to play it where Helen was concerned because she knew her far too well to be at all convinced. And so, when MJ came by the following evening and played the whole thing down, Helen pointed out that not once had she said that she hadn't meant it. 

"A mistake is not the same thing as a regret," she told her, and MJ sighed the way she always did when she thought Helen had strayed over into shrink-mode, but she looked away and in that moment Helen knew she'd understood. When MJ looked back at her again, the expression on her face was somewhere just about halfway between hungry and confused; Helen understood that, too. She didn't push. It didn't take many more nights after that for MJ to take the initiative, because Helen knew she knew it was what they both wanted. 

They knew each other surprisingly well, knew each other to the point where it didn't seem difficult when MJ first stayed the night in a way that meant more than falling asleep on the couch after drinking too much wine. They'd been drinking, of course, but Helen knew that wasn't the reason why when MJ went quiet, when she stretched over to put her glass down on the table as she carefully avoided her gaze. The wine wasn't the reason when she toed off her sneakers and glanced at Helen before she shifted closer. She knelt there beside her on the couch, leaned in as she reached out to tilt Helen's chin just a fraction with the tips of her fingers. It wasn't the wine when they kissed, or when MJ's hand skimmed her waist over the fabric of her nightgown, skimmed the curve of a breast and the tip of a nipple, found the back of her neck. 

It started slowly but it didn't stay slow for long. Helen supposed after the fact that it shouldn't have been surprising given their situation, given the months since that night, given their brush with mortality, but it seemed surprising at the time: the greedy way that they kissed was a surprise, how MJ began to discard her clothes as they made their way to the bedroom. MJ's hands were hot as she gathered Helen's nightgown and pulled it up, as she went up on tiptoe to bring it over her head, amused by the difference in their heights but not amused enough to comment or to slow for a second. Apparently, once MJ got started she was practically a force of nature. 

Neither of them was shy that night, not that they usually exhibited much in the way of shyness. Helen stretched out naked on her bed and watched as MJ removed the rest of her clothing, as she pushed down her jeans and panties in one movement and then came toward the bed. MJ's hands seemed even hotter when she knelt there, mattress dipping slightly, her palms skimming over Helen's ankles, her calves, parting her thighs, thumbs tracing the contours of her sex. Her mouth, her tongue, was hotter still. She didn't leave until the morning.

It didn't stop, though Helen was as surprised about that as MJ seemed. There was little in the way of awkwardness between them, and that was also surprising. But, as the weeks passed and what they had showed no signs of stopping, Helen actually began to believe it could work despite her initial misgivings. MJ kept her place on the other side of the city but she spent almost every night with Helen, drinking or talking or working or writing or possibly in bed, all hot hands and mischievous smiles. Sometimes they showered together in the morning before MJ left for work, Helen's fingertips tracing the scar that the gunshot wound had left by her collarbone. Helen knew to expect the disheartened look every time she tried to feed her food containing actual nutrients. They argued sometimes and it wasn't perfect and neither were they but it wasn't a surprise when the door to Andy's room opened and that became MJ's study, even though she hadn't technically changed address. Helen opened her practice. She didn't take another assistant because she found to her surprise that she didn't need one.

And so, Helen didn't write the book. 

She read it, of course. She'd been reading it in sections for months before it ever made it to a bookshop's shelf, sections that MJ would leave on her desk there between the keyboards, pages neatly clipped in the top left corner. She'd say she didn't want to read them, they'd argue like they always did and then she'd do it anyway, tell herself she did it grudgingly, out on the balcony at breakfast when MJ had already left for work, working with a coffee cup in one hand and a bright red pen in the other. She'd leave the chapter where she'd found it when she finished, and MJ would pick it up when she came in from work, go through it, work on it. Sometimes that was all she'd do all night. Helen had to admire her tenacity.

They never spoke about the content of it except in bright red notes scrawled on printer paper because Helen just wanted to forget. It was something that they fought about in general, however, fought about at least a dozen times, more, because Helen simply did not approve of it in any way and MJ had forged ahead in spite of that. Logically, professionally, Helen knew that was the crux of the problem; MJ wasn't writing for the money or the potential for fame, she was writing for closure. Helen still just wanted to forget. But, of course, with MJ present in her life the way she was, she was never likely that she'd do so. And MJ was definitely in her life. Stubbornly, pervasively, she was in her life, and Helen knew she was the better for it. 

Helen didn't write the book, but the book was written anyway. It was more of a collaboration than she was ever likely to admit. 

When MJ raised her pen at her very first book signing, Helen was with her.


End file.
